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Hey, everybody. Chuck here in 2023. But I'm going to hop us all in the wayback machine and take us back to December 2018 to listen to our episode on Geodesic Domes, because this ties into the live show that we did last year, all about the biosphere two project. The geodesic dome figured in very prominently in that project. We talk all about Buckminster Fuller in this episode, who also figured into that live podcast. And check it out now, if you're into architecture or just cool things, listen to geodesic domes, the wave of the future. That wasn't.

Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm british Josh. There's american Chuck, and there's neutral Switzerland, jerry, which, by the way, now we're saying Switzerland.

Switzerland.

I just decided, because it's close to the end of the year, and I'm about to die of exhaustion.

I love it. On the friendly Fire movie podcast, Ben Harrison. You know, Ben, he says, nazis. Nazis.

That's like kind of like a throwback. That's like a greatest generation way of saying it.

Yeah.

And I know he does it as an affectation.

Sure.

But now I got it from him, and he got it from God knows where, his great grandpa maybe. Nazis.

Yeah. That's a pretty great way to say.

Because there's a lot of occasion to say the word Nazi.

Sure, a lot, now that you mentioned it.

And why did you say you were british?

Because I, Chuck, say geodesic, and you say geodesic.

And we just looked it up, which.

I mean, that's like the first time.

In years the lady said geodesic.

And I was like, yes, I'm right.

Or in America, geodesic.

And I said, we're both right.

But then she didn't say, though, it was british. It could be like, whatever, South African.

Oh, I guess so.

African.

Well, Afrikaner is not english.

Well, yeah, you know what I mean.

We are so far off course already. Jerry's just got ramen coming through her nose. She thought that was so funny. Thanks for the laugh, Jerry. Well, we are talking about geodesic desicc. Maybe we should just say that every time. Say them both.

I'm sure people would love that.

I'm going to say geodesic because that's what I've always said.

Okay, great. I'm going to say geodesic.

That's fine. We're talking about domes. Geodesic domes. And if you have ever seen a weird contraption of a circular house, a ball house, you might call it a sphere house. You've seen a geodesic dome. If you've ever been to epcot.

Sure. I went when I was a kid.

You've seen a geodesic dome. They're all over the place.

All right.

Do you like these as, like, people's houses in a neighborhood or wherever? No, I don't either.

But I'm not going to yuck anybody's yum. You know what I mean?

No.

I mean, when reading them and researching, they're cool. And there are a lot of great advantages that we'll go over, but I just don't care for them.

Right. Esthetically, I don't either. And actually, if you read a quote from Buckminster Fuller, the guy who actually did invent geodesic Jones, we'll get into all that. Anyway, he said one of the reasons they never took off is because they're weird looking. Yeah, they just.

And, well, I'm not going to say.

Really? You tell me later. Okay.

Yeah.

I just don't care for, like, I'm a craftsman. California craftsman bungalow type guy, which is about the opposite of a geodesic dome.

It's pretty angular, for sure. Yeah, and the geodesic dome is angular. Everybody put your laptops away. Geometry nerds. But it's not rectangular. And a craftsman is definitely rectangular. You can even make a case. The roof is not a triangle. It's a rectangle on its side. I just made that case. How's it going? Yeah, pretty good.

Although I probably will never live in one. I do love a modern like a mid century modern.

That's my thing.

I love it, but it's not really ultimately where I would want to live for the rest of my life.

Well, okay. So I don't want to feel like I'm, like, in Finland in the winter or something like that. I'm talking mid century american, actually. Built for a family in, like, the mid 50s, early sixty s. I love it. That has all little cool details and built ins in a wall that doesn't even really need to be there. And you can see right through it because it's like wood spindles.

Sure.

That's what I like.

Yeah, me too.

Not ultra modern. Mid century modern.

Yeah.

Okay.

Mid century.

Yeah.

That's what we call it.

But you don't think you could live in one of those?

No, I'm a craftsman guy. We'd have to get all new stuff, like, if we started over, if our. God forbid, if our house burned down and we lost everything.

Right.

I could start over like that. But the stuff that we have doesn't fit.

Understood.

Grandma's antique bar doesn't really go in that setting.

I've seen that bar, and that thing is classic.

Thank you.

You could put it anywhere. Grandma was a bit of a boost hound.

Well, they didn't use it as a bar. They had, like, humble figurines and stuff. No, and I saw it. It was funny. When I first saw it, I was like, oh, God, I don't really want that. And, like, they're giving it to us. And then we turned it to a bar, and I was like, it's amazing what 30 liquor bottles exactly.

Can really dress up a humble Figurine cabinet. So clearly we're talking again about geodesic domes. And there was a period in time, Chuck, where you could go into some neighborhoods around the country, and you could find well to do hippie types, environmental types, back to earthers living in these geodesic domes. And it's not like they were living in a tent. It was their house. They had plumbing and heating and electricity and all this stuff. It's just that it was a dome.

Yeah.

There was one near where I grew up, actually, and we would pass it going to elementary school, and it was always just sort of like, yeah, there's those weirdos that built the weird house.

Isn't it interesting, though, that had some impact on who you are today, no matter how minute or how small, but seeing that every day or every weekday, that had to have some impact on you.

Yeah.

And theirs was also one of those. It was also partially underground, even. So there was an exposed dome, but then that was sort of built into a hill, so they were full on.

They had a lot of hippie cred.

Yeah.

They were going for it. And looking back, they were probably super cool people.

Probably. They were wearing Birkenstocks way before anybody else is wearing Birkenstocks. So let's talk a little bit about the first geodesic dome, a little geodesic history. Okay.

Okay.

All right. You have to go way back, way back to 1926. And not only do we have to go back, we have to go to Germany, Jenna, Germany.

I don't know where that is.

I don't either. But there is a very famous optics company called Zeiss.

I do know that.

Sure. And Zeiss wanted to build a planetarium on top of one of their factories, their factory at Jenna, Germany. And they said, please build us a planetarium. Walter Bowersfield, where if you didn't know if he was German or not, just listen to his name.

Feld.

Feld. Even more German. And he said, sure, let me think about this, and I'll see what I can come up with. And he came up with what's widely pointed to as the world's first geodesic dome.

Yeah.

And it was a good idea for this project in particular, because they needed it to be light, because it had to go on top of a roof. They needed it to hold a lot of people. And obviously, because it was a planetarium, that interior roundness was kind of key. It'd be weird to have a square planetarium. It would.

Especially if you're like, I didn't know Venus could take a corner like that.

I didn't know he could do that.

Right.

So that's what he did. And it really worked well. It did house a lot of people. I mean, not house, but it could hold a lot of people. It can withstand storms. And these are some of the factors that make them not only popular, but a good idea, depending on where you are. Like, if you're in Antarctica, they have them there, and it's perfect for that kind of weather.

Yeah.

There was a period in time, which we'll see in a second, where geodesic domes were like the house of the future. It was a very good idea that never took off because everybody said, no. We think those are kind of weird. We don't feel comfortable with that, pretty much. So Bowersfeld's planetarium actually kicked off a planetarium craze. It was apparently the first planetarium on Earth, which I would make the case, you can just say the first planetarium in the universe, then probably so. But because there were people who started to build planetariums as a result of this, geodesic domes kind of became a thing. But it wasn't until a guy named Richard Buckminster Fuller of Carbondale, Illinois.

Yeah.

Very big deal.

Came along and actually patented the geodesic dome that they really became that house of the future thing that I was talking about.

Yeah.

And he was an engineer and sort of a visionary thinker, one of the great Americans. I think we could do a show on him altogether, I think.

Agreed.

But his whole jam was like, well, first of all, he saw the inherent good points to these, and we'll get into all those. But first and foremost, you can have a huge volume of space with very little materials, very lightweight materials, and it still be super strong.

Right.

Which is awesome. Because of this, he thought he had a higher goal in mind, which was like the housing in the future, they don't cost that much money. They can hold people safely. And this is how we should think about housing.

Right. You could build it off site at a factory and deliver it by helicopter.

It was that light kind of put it together, but like a kit.

Yes.

And like you were saying, it required, because it could withstand more weight, it required less building materials, which meant it was lower cost. And supposedly you could put these things like a good kit together in a day if you were really cruising along at a good clip.

Sure. You had some high grade 60 speed.

Exactly. Give it to all your couple of friends. Yeah, man, you got me with that one. So this just became plainly obvious that this was going to be the house of the future. One of the other things about it is there is no other building structure that has a larger volume of space with the least amount of surface area.

Yeah.

And he got this idea through looking at nature. He very famously looked to things like crystals and seed pods and things like that and thought like nature. And a lot of people do this in design. They look to nature because nature has sort of proven to get it right, usually over the years.

Yeah.

Like, if you look at an eggshell, you're like, this thing shouldn't withstand anything. And yet it does. And it's a very curious thing.

But it sure looks like it could slip out of a chicken's butt with ease.

Right. Which is kind of what it does.

Like, what if it was square, it.

Slips out of the cloaka. That's true. So Bucky fuller, as he's known, he apparently, I don't know if he wasn't aware of Bowersfeld's design or something. Did you get that impression?

I couldn't tell if this was nefarious. He seemed like a good guy, so I don't think he stole this idea.

Right.

But he was able to secure a patent.

He did. And there's a really great time article, if you can find it. It's called Dimaxian. American Dimaxian was a word that was associated with him. He just made up words a lot, but it tells it. It's from 1964. It says that he was trying to figure out a geometry of energy, and he was using spheres as a model of energy. No idea. But he was putting spheres together. And his idea was that when you put spheres together, they would just make a larger and larger sphere. But that's not what happened. He took a central sphere and put other spheres around it and pushed it together. And what he found was that it started to make squares and triangles rather than a larger sphere. And he figured out that what he had just come up with was actually a very smart structure that you could take those squares and divide those into triangles, and you could take the triangles and divide the triangles into even smaller triangles. And if you kind of curve the edges of the triangles inward towards some imaginary center inside the sphere, you actually create a sphere. And technically, it's a polyhedron.

And most geodesic domes are acosahedrons, which, if you play dungeons and dragons, is just a 20 sided die. But the more you cut the sides into smaller and smaller triangles, the closer to an actual perfect sphere you get. And that's a geodesic sphere. And if you cut it in half or cut a portion of it and just use one half of it, that's a geodesic dome.

Yeah.

Which is what you see. Like, it's not fully round because it has to be flat and sit on something.

Right.

Well, actually, the spaceship Earth geodesic dome is a full sphere, but that is pretty rare.

And I thought it was interesting, too, that they said that if you were just designing something on paper, you could just design bigger and bigger, and it would just get stronger and stronger. But in reality, that's really not the case. Like, when rubber meets the road, there's really only so big you can kind of get.

Yeah, because I had no idea about this. I was roughly familiar with geodesic domes. I didn't know any details, but one thing that I was surprised to find is that the triangles are not all the same size. They have to be adjusted to make this shape, to make this circle or the sphere. So if you're putting together one of these things, as we'll see, you have to be like, oh, this strut goes here, not here. And I actually put it here up on the top, and now I have to go take the whole thing apart. Again, the less complex, the better in practicality. But, yeah, you can really mess with it to make it virtually a perfect sphere out of triangles.

Yeah.

And you mentioned a minute ago that. And I think people that pay attention were probably like, oh, Josh is so funny. Or what did he just say? Did Buckminster Fuller make up words? He did, because he made up another word. When it comes to these domes, tensegrity.

Which is not a good word.

It's not. He mixed two words together, tensional and integrity. And so that's the relationship between the tension and compression. And that really kind of describes how these things fit together and why they end up being super strong, even though when you look at it, you're like, man, I could blow that thing over.

Right. So let's take a break, and then we'll get into, like, the actual dynamics going on.

Okay.

Angiometry.

Yes.

Promise?

Yes.

One of the best shows of the year, according to Apple, Amazon. And time is back for another round. We have more insightful conversations between myself, Paul Muldoon, and Paul McCartney about his life and career.

It was 20 years ago today.

We had a big bear of a man called Mal Evans, and I was coming back on the plane, and he said, will you pass the salt?

And pepper?

And I misheard him. I said, what, sergeant Pepper?

This season, we're diving deep into some of McCartney's most beloved songs. Yesterday, band on the run, hagered, and McCartney's favorite song in his entire catalog. Here, there, and everywhere. Listen to season two of McCartney a life and lyrics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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All right, Chuck, I promised it's time to talk geometry.

How'd you do in geometry?

I failed the first time, aced it the second time. I'm actually really glad that I failed it, because when I was forced to take it again by the man.

And this is high.

Yeah.

Yeah, it clicked. And I've never understood any field of math like, I understood geometry. I don't quite remember it now, but I understood geometry like I was Pythagoras's brother.

I wasn't quite at that level, but I feel like, because I have long sort of poo pooed the maths.

Yeah, but you've that, right?

Well, yeah, but, I mean, just for my p brain, like, understanding it, I understood geometry more than all the other math, right? And I did okay in it for an english nerd.

Yeah, good enough.

It's completely different than anything else I.

Feel like, in that, geometry does seem like its own thing for sure.

Very much its own thing.

Like, yeah, there's numbers and sigma makes an appearance and stuff like that, but it definitely seems to be. It's different than algebra, I'll tell you that.

Budy, shout out to miss Carn Reedan high school.

Oh, I wish I could remember my geometry teacher, the one it clicked with.

She was great. She was one of those teachers that was 70 years old. From the time that she was 28 till the time she was 70, she was great.

And then she turned back into 28.

Yeah, I remember she had this polka dot. It's funny the things that you remember. She had this polka dot shirt where all the polka dots were collected at the bottom, and she said that it used to be all over, but she hung it up to dry. That was her big joke.

She's like, welcome to my class. It's the only joke of the year. Let's get busy.

Yeah, I bet you there's one person out there who had Miss Karn and knows that shirt.

Yeah, I hope it's a great joke, Miss Karn. Okay, so we're talking geometry, right?

Yeah.

Do you remember our bridges episode?

Yeah.

Remember we talked about bridge trusses, the bridges that are made up of triangular shapes, and we said, those things are extraordinarily strong because they're triangles.

Yeah, man, triangles.

Same thing here.

Can't beat them.

A geodesic dome or sphere is a sphere made up of triangles. And if you actually take the triangular shape and build one, in reality, it is one of the strongest shapes you can create, because wherever you press on it, it transfers that pressure, that force, to the rest of the shape. So it distributes that kind of weight or pressure or force or whatever you want to lay on it, it distributes it evenly. And if you put another triangle together with one triangle, it sends it to the other triangle, too. And so the more triangles you add, the more a force is distributed throughout it.

And that's basically it.

That's why it's so strong. Like, what you were saying, like, you look at it, and you're like, I could blow that over. You might be able to push it over and make it roll away if it's a sphere, but you probably could not break it.

Yeah.

And when you look at, like, if you're inside one of these, it's usually covered with wood or drywall or something, so it's not as evident. But on the outside, you generally can still see this frame of triangles all fitting together beautifully to make something super super strong.

Yes. And apparently the strongest version of a geodesic dome or sphere is one that's actually made not just out of triangles, but out of pyramids. If you look at the Epcot spaceship Earth geodesic sphere, it's actually pyramids. All the triangles are actually. That is. That's it. That's the money. Geodesic dome.

Yeah.

And that one, since we're on that is interesting in that one of the downfalls, and we'll go over more later, but one of the downfalls of geodesic domes is sometimes rain doesn't treat them well. Yeah, but the one at Epcot was just like, we're not even going to pretend that we want to repel the rain. They have little grooves that actually collect the rain and that send it to one of those little corny lagoons.

I love those lagoons.

I know.

I love everything about epcot.

I haven't been since I was in 7th.

Great.

I mean, did they update it or is it still very much like the world of tomorrow today?

No, they've updated it. I mean, the whole thing is still like that. But there's newer stuff. Like, there's a really cool ride, an immersive ride called Soren, where you get lifted up and you're in front of this huge, giant, curved movie screen and you're, like, soaring through the world like a world tour. It's really neat.

And do they move your little thing around so you feel like you're.

You definitely feel like you're soaring through there?

Yeah.

That's like when they debuted that back to the future ride years ago.

Was it like that?

Yeah.

You sit in the DeLorean and it's on hydraulics and it's, like, moving all around.

But it's a movie screen in front of you.

Yeah.

And you're going through. But it's amazing how accurate they can sync that up to where you really feel like.

Right.

I remember there was at one point where the car was on the edge of a cliff and it was sort of teetering and it got really quiet and then it teetered over and then the car just stopped moving and you felt like you were falling.

Wow.

Just because it stopped moving.

Right.

And if you turned around and looked backwards, you're like, everyone's freaking out and you're just sitting in a car doing.

Nothing, but everybody's going, oh, so great.

I loved it.

So we were saying, like, this thing pops up all over.

Yeah.

The geodesic dome did. And this Time magazine article put it really beautifully. That it was like Buckminster Fuller had discovered a signature of God.

Whoa.

This made scare quotes because around God signature, the whole thing, since it is such like an efficient structure that can support a lot of weight, you do see it in things like eggs, cornea, the testicle, which I'm like, sure. Really? I guess so. I couldn't find that anywhere else. And I definitely typed testicle geodesic dome into Google, and it didn't really come back with anything, but this 1964 time article says it. So it's so.

Well, the dome period is a pretty strong structure. The Romans were building really big, strong domes a long, long time ago, but they don't stay strong for long. That's sort of one of the problems with a dome, just a regular dome, is that you need a lot of super heavy supporting materials and walls to keep it up, and over time they wear out. But what fuller did was took that sort of same principle and applied this geometry to it. And these triangles that the Romans didn't think of. And the rest is history, I guess.

Yeah. What he found was that when you put these spheres together, you created what he called a vector equilibrium, the outward force of the thing that's trying to collapse it. You know how like if you could press down on the roof of a house, it would collapse outward to the sides?

Yes.

Same thing wants to happen to geodesic dome. But in a geodesic dome, that pressure outward from the force of gravity makes it stronger, is actually equaled to the force that's being distributed around it, the circumferential force. And since they're in equal measures, they cancel each other out. So it's just like the thing is gravity free.

Yeah.

I mean, you definitely see why he was like, this is the house of the future. Because they were cheap, they were strong, they were lightweight, and they distribute like, heat just blows around them, because they're round, they're really efficient to heat and cool. There are a lot of really great advantages to them.

Yeah.

And so when he. I can't remember when he made his first one, I think it was at a world's fair.

Was that the Montreal, was that the first one?

No, Montreal was 67. This one would have been in Moscow, 54.

Well, that's when he got his patent.

Yeah, I guess this would have been before then, or right around the same time, but in 59. Yeah, I guess the first one must have been Ford. The Ford plant.

Yeah.

The Ford Motor company wanted a covering, and he said, well, I think this is the trick. And he built it. He was like, I can. And this is what Ford wants to hear, or any company, he was like, it'll be better and cheaper, and I'll get it done faster than any of these other schmucks.

And so bear in mind that when Ford called them from Dearborn, Michigan, that no one had ever come up with this before, they thought, since they wanted to enclose their courtyard, the central courtyard and this rotunda that they'd built, that it was going to have to be a traditional dome with buttresses and supports and, like, heavy walls and all that.

Sure.

The problem was, because the courtyard was so far across, I think it was more than 30 meters, 90ft across. Anything that they built would probably collapse the walls of this very sturdy rotunda building. So they had a problem. And when they called Buckminster Fuller, I don't know who got in touch with who, it was pretty brazen for him to say what you said. He said that he can get this done below cost in time. It's going to be super light. And he proved the world wrong, his doubters wrong, at least when he built the first geodesic dome over it, and it was pretty awesome. Also, we didn't mention he was a freshman college dropout. So he's self taught. And he just came along and showed the world of engineering. Basically, a brand new type of structure, an incredibly elegantly efficient type of structure. He just showed the world it could be done.

Yeah.

Some people are just born with, like, a certain kind of brain.

That's why he deserves his own episode, for sure.

Yeah.

So the Ford dome was great for a while, until 1962, when it was leaking. And they said, hey, this thing's leaking. We need to do some repair work. So they were doing that, and they were waterproofing and weatherproofing the panels, and they were using a waterproof, see through, transparent waterproof sealer. But to make it easier to spray, they heated it up, which makes sense, but unfortunately, those vapors ignited from a propane heater. This thing caught on fire. And I get the idea that the whole thing was done in, like, an hour.

Yeah, because they sealed a lot of it with the waterproofing, the highly flammable waterproofing stuff. So when a little bit caught, those vapors caught, the whole dome caught fire. And it was made of, like, aluminum and plastic, so it just went up like a match. And they were decorating for the Christmas fantasy exhibit below in the courtyard. All that stuff caught on fire. It burned the whole rotunda down, I imagine.

Huge building.

There's nothing more flammable than Christmas decorations in the early ninety s. Sixty s. Not a chance. Yeah, it was really sad. Everyone got out of there, which is good. But by the time the fire department got there, it was too late.

It was toast.

50 foot flames. Like, I can't imagine what that scene looked like.

And it burned the whole building down.

Oh, yeah.

Like this was actually a tourist attraction. Imagine going to Dearborn, Michigan to see the Ford dome. Yes, that's what people did. I think it'd seen like 18 million visitors in its 20 or 30 years of operation. And this waterproofing fix burned the whole thing down at Christmas time. So I love how this article kind of brushes over. It says, no matter, buck. Mr. Fuller's geodesic dome had shown that it could be done.

Yeah, it bears a little more digging.

In than that, for sure. But it is true. He had shown the world there's this thing and we should start making them because they are efficient, cheap, affordable and highly transportable. And apparently the next people to call was the military because they wanted to start using them as like antarctic bases or to cover radar dishes, that kind of thing.

Yeah, he very famously, too, in 1967 at.

No.

Was this the world's fair or is this a different thing? No, they just didn't call it World's Fair.

Right.

The universal exposition in Montreal in 67 very famously had a 200 foot tall dome. And he was really trying to push the limits of what you could do. Like he dreamed of enclosing part of Manhattan in a dome and saying, we could give you clean air and climate control, and it'll pay for itself over time because you won't have to use snowplows and all these other things that cost money.

It seems ghastly, almost like a burnsian type of idea.

Well, there would definitely be a certain class of people that lived in that thing.

Yeah.

But I doubt if he'd be like, we'll do it over all of queens.

Well, yeah, it was 22nd to 62nd, I think, from river to river in Manhattan.

Wow.

It was going to be huge. And he did say it could pay for itself just from snow removal, not having to do snow removal, but imagine not having precipitation ever. It's wrong. There's something wrong with that. But it really captures the can do engineering spirit of mid century America for sure.

Yeah, I mean, you can do a cool experiment with like a biosphere type of thing, but you don't want Manhattan covered by a, you know, all the.

Smells, maybe Topeka or something like that.

And that's one of the problems, is all the smells, apparently, they just fill up that dome. There's nothing to stop it, right?

Yeah.

The sewer gas accumulating at the top and eventually exploding.

Yeah.

No good.

The Ghostbusters running around shooting off proton packs inside that thing.

No good. Man, it's been a while since the GB ref. Should we take a break? All right, we'll be right back.

One of the best shows of the year, according to Apple, Amazon. And time is back for another round. We have more insightful conversations between myself, Paul Muldoon, and Paul McCartney about his life and career.

We had a big bear of a land called Mal Evans, and I was coming back on the plane, and he said, will you pass the salt and pepper? And I misheard him. I said, what salt and pepper?

This season, we're diving deep into some of McCartney's most beloved songs. Yesterday, band on the run, hagered, and McCartney's favorite song in his entire catalog. Here, there, and everywhere. Listen to season two of McCartney, a life and lyrics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, it's Jenna Ashkowitz and Kevin McHale, hosts of and that's what you really miss. Podcast.

We're reliving the magic of McKinley High by watching all six seasons of Glee.

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What's your emergency?

You have to send someone.

What's going on?

Well, whatever it is, that's our entire emergency force. On the way somewhere, they're saying there's.

A body in the woods.

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It'S out of order, with secrets hidden for centuries.

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I'm talking about the murder and disappearance in small town New Hampshire.

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All right. So the come along. He's been doing his thing in the. When the counterculture and the anti mainstream sort of vibe was hitting, and so it was sort of prime. It was sort of primed for these things to come into fashion. And they did. Just for regular old houses.

Yeah.

They didn't sweep the nation.

No. But there were enough people looking for ways to very blatantly thumb their nose at the establishment.

Yeah.

Look at my round house.

Basically. Yeah. Again, it does provide a lot of benefits that other ones don't. Right. So because it's a sphere and it's basically one big room.

Well, yes, but you can build rooms inside of it.

You can, sure. But the air distribution is really efficient, so it's very cheap to heat and cool. I think the average number that people reported was about a 30% savings in energy cost.

That sounds totally made up.

It does, but I saw as high as 50, and it seems like the world said, no, we'll go with 30. Sure, we'll go with the lower.

That seems believable.

And so you've got heating and cooling efficiencies, like you were saying, because it's round, it's not trying to stop wind. Like cool wind. Hot wind. When it runs into your house. If it's a rectangular house, craftsman, mid century modern, who cares? It runs into it and it's going to transfer heat or coal into your house.

Yeah, in my case, right through my windows.

Okay. Yeah, it's a great example. The thing is, you don't want that heat or that cool in there, usually. So you're going to have to spend a lot of money to artificially pump it out. Right?

Yeah.

Through AC with a geodesic dome. The wind kind of just moves around it. It's super aerodynamic. So it's not just running into this flat surface and trying to go through. It's just like, excuse me, I'll just go around.

Yeah.

And that's why they're great in Antarctica. They can withstand whatever kind of weather they throw. They Antarctica, they penguin. And I have seen some of these at the beach. Again, they're not like the coolest looking beach house, but you see, know, you'll see like, quaint old beach house, Cape Cod, geodesic dome, and then like, McMansion. And I imagine they do very well at the beach.

Yeah.

Because after a hurricane, if a hurricane is bad enough, you see empty lot, empty lot, geodesic dome, empty lot. And apparently it's anecdotal, but that's been reported that geodesic domes can make it through substantial hurricanes when the rest of the houses around it did not.

Yeah, it makes sense. Some of the disadvantages is, like, we were joking about the smell, but it's really true. Smell and sound, if you've just got a big globe that you're inside, are really going to move around. There's not a ton of privacy, even though you can build out. Sort of like living in a loft. You can build out rooms.

Right.

But if your rooms don't have a ceiling. Although I guess you could do that too.

You could. But then you're like, well, why am.

I even in a day?

Right, exactly.

Light as well.

That's a big one.

Yeah.

You know, like the little light on your router that's like really bright at night. Imagine that just being distributed throughout your entire house.

Yeah.

No good.

No, that's not a good one. Plus, if you look at any piece of furniture that's ever been created in the history of humanity, it's all meant for rectangular structures.

Yeah.

Unless it's some sort of custom piece for a geodesic dome, which is very expensive.

Yeah.

You have to get all this stuff made yourself. And the same goes true for, like, the construction world is set up for square. Right. So fixtures and plumbing and pipes and all that stuff has to be sort of. And contractors get scared away from these things.

Oh, yeah.

They won't come near it.

Yeah.

Unless you're just a specialist.

Sure. And you're probably like the highest paid contractor in the world who works like once a year. Yes, but those same disadvantages are also advantages. Right? Like, you have a lot more floor space.

Yeah, but sometimes it's wasted. It can be like, if you've got a big, long couch. You've got a bunch of space behind it that's just sitting there, a little semicircle behind you.

That's why a lot of, and I think this is the reason why I'm not super hip on geodesic domes is a lot of this stuff is just kind of out in the center of the room.

Right.

And it looks adrift or unanquered. That's a good thing about a wall or a corner or something like that. It provides a visual anchor to your stuff.

No one can sneak up on you?

No. Maybe that's why I don't like it. I'm like, what's behind me?

Do you like your back against the wall in a restaurant?

No, I don't care about that.

Oh, man.

Do you?

Yeah.

Really? You're afraid? What are you, a gangster or something?

No, I don't think I'm going to get just, I just feel exposed. And Emily is very sweet. She's usually like, go ahead and take the seat. But lately she's been like, no, that's. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Wow. What'd you do?

Nothing, man. It's just the time we're living in. She's doing it.

So do you sit there and turn around every time somebody comes in?

The waiter comes in and I punch them. Turn around and punch them.

Don't touch my stuff.

Rain. We talked about rain. It can be problematic. And it says in here that flat roofs are the best. What they mean are flat roofs at an angle because a truly flat roof is the worst, is not good. Frank Lloyd Wright did a bunch of those, and his houses could be very problematic. He had a very famous exchange. I can't remember the person, but it was some very wealthy sort of noteworthy person. Frank Lloyd Wright built him a house and he called and complained and said, the water is now dripping onto my desk. And supposedly Frank Lloyd Wright said, move the desk.

That sounds like Frank Lloyd Wright. Yeah, for sure.

I don't know if that's a true.

Story, but I guarantee it's with the, with the shingled roof, even with the flat roof. Like, a flat roof is not moving water, but it's probably not coming down. There's not as many places for it to come down with a geodesic dome. Every place where your struts, the sides of the triangle come together at an angle. At the nodes, there is a point where water can get in and actually it can get in along where one triangle goes into another. There's a lot of places for water to penetrate. Geodesic dome. It's a water nightmare from what I can tell.

Well, it's put together from a lot of little panels.

Yeah.

So let's just really briefly say that. So one of the reasons why people were crazy for geodesic domes is you could put them together, like we said, in a day.

Yeah.

You can get a color coded kit. You still can. And there are companies out there that will send them to you and you can get your friends, get some good 60 speed and a case of beer or two and build your house in a couple of days.

Yeah.

And not sleep the entire time. That's right. So when you put these things together, you're building the structure and then you're coding the structure. It can be. One kid I saw is like greenhouse. It's a really great greenhouse. I bet if you've ever been on a jungle gym that was built after the 60s, those dome ones, the best. The geodesic dome. But the structure can be made from like hollow tubing, two x fours, whatever. It can be wood. It can be whatever. And then usually the outside, the triangles that fill in over the structure are concrete or plastic or plywood or something like that. And then you want to coat it. But all those different seals or those different seams, they're all just water heaven, which is, again, a big problem, probably problem number one, practically speaking.

Yeah.

It's interesting, now that I think about it. It's sort of how tent design has gone over the years. Tents used to be just like camping tents, just like triangles, like a pup tent. And then the big dome tents came into fashion. And then I think the secret was to try and make dome tents with as few seams as possible, because that's where your water gets in.

Yeah. And as few poles, too. Yeah, just a couple of. And then maybe. There you go. You got your tent.

You could be a tent designer.

I want to go ahead and trademark what I just said. Okay.

Should we talk about some famous domes?

I think we should.

That's always the best part.

There's the Expo 67 one that, by the way, burned as well.

Oh, really?

No, the structure stayed. They turned it into a biosphere in the believe.

So Brendan Fraser lives in there in polishure.

And Stephen Baldwin.

Sure. Man alive, that's where he's been. And these, to me, like, if you look up the. How do you pronounce the one in Japan?

The Fukuoka yahoo oku dome.

Oh, is that the full name?

Yahoo oku with an exclamation point because Yahoo is that the sponsor got the naming rights yeah.

So that is a baseball stadium. But when you look at, like, to me, I think of Epcot. When you look at this baseball stadium, it doesn't feel. I mean, it is a geodesic dome, but it just doesn't feel like that kind of futuristic, highly paneled, triangular thing.

Well, what's cool about it is the dome part actually retracts.

Yeah.

Retractable roof in, like, 20 minutes. And the reason it retracts so quickly is because it's so lightweight, comparatively speaking.

Yeah.

So it's pretty sweet.

There's the Tacoma dome.

Yeah. Which is a wood dome. That just does not sound sturdy to me.

Yeah. What was it? Oh, our skyscrapers episode. There was that new wood skyscraper somewhere. Why do I want to say, like, Nebraska?

I thought that was Japan, too.

Oh, was it?

I think so.

It's one of the two, right?

It's easy to get them confused.

Osaka, Nebraska. They sound alike.

Yeah.

Tacoma Dome is where the Sonics used to play.

They're like, Kevin Durant's going to love this.

Oh, man. So sad. I wonder when a team leaves. I've always wondered if they just. Because I know, like, when the Browns left and became the know, my stepfather was like, they were just dead to me.

White. What?

Yeah, that's where the Ravens came from. They were the Cleveland Browns.

The browns aren't playing still?

No, there were no browns for years.

Okay.

And then they came back and said, we'll give you a team again, Cleveland, and you can be the Browns again.

Got you.

But art model literally, famously packed up in the middle of the night. Like, there are footage of 18 wheeler trucks.

Wow.

At, like, 02:00 a.m. Hauling stuff.

Yeah.

You don't want to leave Cleveland. Ask LeBron.

But they were dead to him after that. And I always wonder, like, if the Falcons left Atlanta and went to Birmingham, they'd still be the same. Would I? Wouldn't be like, no, screw that team.

No, that's definitely how I went with the Sonics, for sure.

Yeah.

Seattle was not very happy about that.

They weren't not. I don't blame them.

Supposedly, they're going to get another team, one of the Microsoft founders, I guess Wozniak is talking about bringing them.

Oh, really?

Somebody from Microsoft is going to bring a team?

They're saying, what was it Paul Allen?

I don't think so.

He just passed away, though, right?

Maybe it was Paul Allen.

I mean, he owned the Sonics, I.

Think, but he was from Microsoft.

I'm just getting all confused now. No, I think, yeah, Paul Allen was Bill Gates partner.

He died.

Yeah, I think he died kind of in the last, like, six.

Oh, well, maybe Seattle's not getting a basketball team.

I'm not sure.

Okay.

Where did they go? Oh, Oklahoma City.

Right.

Yeah.

It's so confusing, everyone. For two half sports guys like us. We don't even make a full sports guy.

Who's your team this season?

Well, I always root for the Hawks, but it's just they're a wasteland. It's pretty bad, so I don't even care.

Yeah. Who does Schroeder play for now?

He plays for Oklahoma City.

Does he? I thought it was a different western team. You like LeBron in LA? Sure.

We should have a sports show called the worst sports show on the web.

This is a trailer for it.

What about the Eden project? That one's pretty cool. And aren't there two of these in there? One in China as well?

I think they're going to open one in China. I think there's a third one they're opening, but the original one's in Cornwall. I'm sorry. Canal Cornhole in the UK. God knows how you pronounce that. I guarantee it's not Cornwall.

It's probably Cornwall, maybe. This one's really cool, though. This is one where you look it up and you're like, this is what you should be doing within geodesic dome. Like, experimentation.

They build a biome.

Yeah.

That's one of the points of a geodesic dome, is you can create a different climate inside a larger climate. It's a bubble. You're creating a climate bubble. That's what the Eden project did, at least. And they have two of them. They've got a tropical biome and then a smaller mediterranean biome.

So cool.

And they're just beautiful. Lots of amazing plants and waterfalls and just great stuff. Apparently, it's a wonderful tourist attraction. I would go.

I totally would.

I think there's also a witchcraft museum in Cornwall that I want to go to.

Let's do it, man.

All right. We're going road trip.

Yeah.

We got to do a UK tour again.

Yeah.

That was awesome.

And then we'll detour off to Cornwall.

Maybe do a show there. How many people are there?

Cornwall. Let us know if we should do a show there.

Let's do a live show inside the tropical biome.

That'd be cool.

I wonder if we could set that up.

We could also do one at Epcot, too. We'll do a geodesic dome tour.

Can we do one inside of the castle in the magic.

You can ask.

You have connections there, right?

Yeah. Friend Brandon.

That's right.

Who built my site, thejosclarkway.com.

I know I'm going to have to get in touch with him as my kid gets older. Have to finally drag Emily down there.

He will happily help you out. He's a great guy.

He helped my brother out.

Oh, and by the way, I'm glad you brought that up. Congratulations to Brandon and Katie on the birth of their first ever child.

Oh, wow.

Yes.

Cooper born into Disney royalty.

Yeah, pretty much.

That's pretty great.

Congrats, dudes.

I wonder if Cooper is going to go up and just be like, yeah, take her to leave it. I go, like, twice a week.

Right. This isn't Euro Disney. I wish it was Euro Disney.

Well, that is spaceship Earth, of course, is the one we're talking about there that we mentioned. 180ft tall silver geosphere, very much the central sort of shining star of Epcot.

That's what everybody thinks of with Epcot.

Every shirt.

Well, not every shirt, but 98%.

98%.

Did you know that Epcot is an acronym, Chuck?

I did, but I remembered that from when I was a kid, but I can't remember now. What is it?

Experimental prototype community of tomorrow.

That's right.

And the name of the geodesic dome is actually called spaceship Earth, and it was directly influenced by Bucky Fuller. Walt Disney was a big futurist. That's why there's, like, tomorrowland and all that stuff and why there's Epcot in general. But not only did he inspire spaceship Earth, the name spaceship Earth comes from a Bucky Fuller essay, kind of a novella, called an operating manual for spaceship Earth. And you can find the pdf for free on the web and get a pretty good idea of Bucky Fuller's whole jam.

You know what I heard? I heard that very famous Walt Disney signature is not his signature, and that a cartoonist designer came up with that for him, too.

Perfect. I could totally see. I'm not. I'm not affected by that. I'm okay with it.

Oh, really? He's not just a big fraud now, in your mind?

Basically, I let him off the hook. If you want to know more about geodesic domes, go make friends with a hippie. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail, I'm going to call.

One of our new young fans. Got a very sweet email from Veronica. Hey, guys. I'm Veronica, 15 years old, and I'm from Indianapolis, Indiana. I just heard about Sarah, the 13 year old superfan who's like 50 now. Yeah, Sarah's. She's Miss Carn. And I, too am a superfan. I started listening when I was nine or ten with my mom every once in a while. Then I got an ipod and started listening to you regularly when I was eleven. I love listening to the show when I'm getting ready in the morning and I'm going to school or going to sleep before bed every time you guys do a tour announcement, I always hope you're going to say somewhere close, like within 2 hours of Indianapolis. But I don't think that has ever happened.

Dude, Cleveland is not that far from Indianapolis.

I took a break from podcasts for about two months, but I missed listening to them, so I came back and now I'm back regularly again. I just want to stop in and say hi. If I'm lucky, I'll make it to the podcast, but I don't expect it. Just keep being you guys because I love to learn about the four different types of cat hair. The fact that cinnamon is a type of tree bark, perfume is made from whale vomit, and Urosol is what makes poison ivy so itchy.

Wow.

My mom really likes your beard, Chuck, and she hopes that someone gifts you some beard lights for Christmas.

Oh, I saw those.

If you don't know what they are, they're just little ornaments that you hang in your beard.

Have you seen them?

And they light up. Super festive.

Do you want some?

No.

Okay.

I cut most of my beard off.

I just noticed that it looks very trim.

This is sort of like the old days.

Looks nice.

And that is. She put signed Veronica, which is adorable.

Thank you, Veronica.

So, Veronica, I think we should. We're trying to hit the major cities we've never been to eventually, right? I think we might want to put Indianapolis on the list for 2019.

Oh, boy.

And give Indiana some love.

Okay, fine.

This year we were like, I don't know, salt lake City, Phoenix, and they were great.

It's true. Well, to be honest, salt lake city came out for us big time. They emailed us. They're like, yes, please come. We got such an overwhelming response that we're like, how could we say no?

So we should go to Indianapolis. I told her if we do, then we'll put her and mom on the guest list.

That is very nice.

Yeah.

Okay.

They have a dome there.

Settled.

We could go do a show there where the Colts play.

We could. Is it the Colts? What do they play soccer?

Yeah.

But they came from baltimore, who then became the Ravens. It's just so weird. Everyone's moving all over the place.

Who's the great leader of the pacers now? Victor.

The great leader?

Yeah.

Who is the great leader?

Kim Jong Victor.

I don't know their.

No, no.

He's like their captain. But yeah, he's a player.

I don't know. Ron artest.

Victor.

What year?

Right now, Victor Borgia. Yes. Victor Borgia is now. Anyway, we're going to list him, too once I remember his last name because he's Victor Victoria, if you want to know. Well, I already said that if you want to get in touch with us, you can go to stuffyshanow.com and you will find all of our social links there. And you can always send us an email to stuffpodcast howstuffworks.com.

Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartradio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

One of the best shows of the year according to Apple, Amazon. And time is back for another round.

We had a big bear of the land. It was called Evans, and I was coming back on the plane, and he said, will you pass the salt and pepper? And I misheard him. I said, what salt and pepper?

Listen to season two of McCartney, a life and lyrics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Martha Stewart, and we're back with a new season of my podcast. This season will be even more revealing and more personal with more entrepreneurs, more live events, and more questions from you. I'm talking to my cosmetic dermatologist, Dr. Dan Belkin, about the secrets behind my skincare encore, Jane about creating a billion dollar startup, Walter Isaacson about the geniuses who change the world. Listen and subscribe to the Martha Stewart podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, it's Jenna Ashkowitz and Kevin McHale.

Hosts of and that's what you really miss, podcasts.

We're reliving the magic of McKinley High by watching all six seasons of glee.

We have exclusive interviews with some of your favorite glee cast members like Chris Koffer, Amber Riley, Darren Chris, Heather Morris, Alex Newell, and so many more.

Meet us in the choir room while we reveal our greatest memories and untold stories.

Listen to. And that's what you really miss. Podcasts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.